Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. was not involved in the death of top Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed early Wednesday morning in an apparent assassination in Iran.

Blinken, who is on a multicountry trip to the Indo-Pacific, told Channel News Asia the U.S. was “not aware of or involved in” the assassination.

At at separate event Wednesday in Singapore, Blinken reiterated his support for a cease-fire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas.

“It’s profoundly in the interest of putting things in a better path,” he said of a deal. “We’ll continue to work at that every day.”

Blinken added it was difficult “to speculate” if the death of Haniyeh would complicate a potential cease-fire and hostage release deal, which aims to halt the fighting in Gaza and return the 116 hostages still held by Hamas.

Israel has not commented on the death of Haniyeh, who has been living in exile in Qatar for several years but was on a visit to Iran’s capitol of Tehran when a drone or rocket struck his building, killing him and his bodyguard, according to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Iran and Hamas have blamed Israel for the death of Haniyeh and have vowed revenge in response.

It would be somewhat rare for Israel to strike Iranian soil, which Israeli officials are aware would likely provoke an escalation as fighting rages across the Middle East between Iranian-backed proxies and Israel.